them had voiced it to each other. And not as ferociously and vehemently as my Dad had. On his way out of the meeting, my Dad tossed a coffee cup into the group, catching one of his friends above the eye and splitting the skin quite badly. The rest of the people were understandably quite enraged and, if it hadn’t been for my mother, might have taken retribution right there and then. Luckily she managed to talk them out of it and they decided to let him sleep it off and confront him in the morning.
So once the household was awake, they summoned everyone into the kitchen where they, again according to my Mom, “ganged up” on my Dad. I suppose, in his state, it was no surprise that he responded and retaliated. Again, if you knew him, you would know that he wouldn’t harm a fly – he was… is… such a gentle soul. It’s quite surprising that he didn’t actually move into a field such as the hospital environment or maybe working as a social worker, because he cared so much for everybody. Don’t know how he ended up in metallurgy, and come to think of it, I don’t have a clue what metallurgy is. I lived with the man for so long and was brought up by him but I don’t even know what he did on a day-to-day basis. You know what? That makes me feel even more like shit than I already do.
So my Dad absorbed all the allegations meted out to him and then lashed back at everyone there, including my mother. He swore at them, swung at them and spat at them. “He was mad,” my mother said. He then ran from the kitchen, grabbed one of the guns that they left by the front door for protection, and opened the door, the first time that it had been opened in nigh on a month. As you can imagine, pandemonium ensued, with half the people, my mother included obviously, trying to grab at him to pull him back in so that they could close the door, and the other half trying to push him out so that they could do the same – close the door. Thinking about it now, opening up the door and possibly alerting the infected to the presence of the other people in the house was a very selfish thing to do for a person who was very selfless…
But he did, and although the tug-of-war to get him back/push him out continued for a while, my Dad’s dogged determination to leave the place that he had called home for the past few weeks eventually got the better of everyone and he was out of their grasp. My Mom says she didn’t actually see him leaving as all she recalls was curling up into the fetal position and crying, but the others recounted to her how he had run for the gate with his arms and the gun aloft, and as he scaled the wall to leave the protection of the house, he looked back at the door and gave them a cheery wave. The next second he slipped over the wall and was gone. The last memory my mother will have of my father will be of hearing a cacophony of gun shots and then deadly silence.
I wish I could be there with her, to console her. Or do I wish I was with her so she could console me?
That’s enough.
Sam
5:45, June 7
The hangover has finally worn off. So it’s about time to start drinking again then. I’m still alive though, missing my Dad like you can only miss someone once they have passed. I’ve been thinking about him all day – like the time when he bust me smoking (hey, I’ve just made a mid-year’s resolution to start smoking. Fuck, if the world is going to come to an end, I may as well enjoy it). Remember that carton of Peter Stuyvesant cigarettes that I found in the flat next door? Well I found it under the couch, searched high and wide for some matches before eventually finding some at the bottom of the spare room cupboard, and lit a smoke. I coughed into a pillow to limit the noise. It was horrible. But I persevered through it, and by the third cigarette I could remember why I liked it so much when I was younger. (Even though calling me a ‘smoker’ would have been a stretch).
Anyway, I
So once the household was awake, they summoned everyone into the kitchen where they, again according to my Mom, “ganged up” on my Dad. I suppose, in his state, it was no surprise that he responded and retaliated. Again, if you knew him, you would know that he wouldn’t harm a fly – he was… is… such a gentle soul. It’s quite surprising that he didn’t actually move into a field such as the hospital environment or maybe working as a social worker, because he cared so much for everybody. Don’t know how he ended up in metallurgy, and come to think of it, I don’t have a clue what metallurgy is. I lived with the man for so long and was brought up by him but I don’t even know what he did on a day-to-day basis. You know what? That makes me feel even more like shit than I already do.
So my Dad absorbed all the allegations meted out to him and then lashed back at everyone there, including my mother. He swore at them, swung at them and spat at them. “He was mad,” my mother said. He then ran from the kitchen, grabbed one of the guns that they left by the front door for protection, and opened the door, the first time that it had been opened in nigh on a month. As you can imagine, pandemonium ensued, with half the people, my mother included obviously, trying to grab at him to pull him back in so that they could close the door, and the other half trying to push him out so that they could do the same – close the door. Thinking about it now, opening up the door and possibly alerting the infected to the presence of the other people in the house was a very selfish thing to do for a person who was very selfless…
But he did, and although the tug-of-war to get him back/push him out continued for a while, my Dad’s dogged determination to leave the place that he had called home for the past few weeks eventually got the better of everyone and he was out of their grasp. My Mom says she didn’t actually see him leaving as all she recalls was curling up into the fetal position and crying, but the others recounted to her how he had run for the gate with his arms and the gun aloft, and as he scaled the wall to leave the protection of the house, he looked back at the door and gave them a cheery wave. The next second he slipped over the wall and was gone. The last memory my mother will have of my father will be of hearing a cacophony of gun shots and then deadly silence.
I wish I could be there with her, to console her. Or do I wish I was with her so she could console me?
That’s enough.
Sam
5:45, June 7
The hangover has finally worn off. So it’s about time to start drinking again then. I’m still alive though, missing my Dad like you can only miss someone once they have passed. I’ve been thinking about him all day – like the time when he bust me smoking (hey, I’ve just made a mid-year’s resolution to start smoking. Fuck, if the world is going to come to an end, I may as well enjoy it). Remember that carton of Peter Stuyvesant cigarettes that I found in the flat next door? Well I found it under the couch, searched high and wide for some matches before eventually finding some at the bottom of the spare room cupboard, and lit a smoke. I coughed into a pillow to limit the noise. It was horrible. But I persevered through it, and by the third cigarette I could remember why I liked it so much when I was younger. (Even though calling me a ‘smoker’ would have been a stretch).
Anyway, I
Similar Books
